Smoke and Mirrors

by Jess Haines

  “You… you… you.”

  That was all she could get out. She couldn’t even put into words how angry she was at him. Cormac reached for her, and she skittered back with a cry.

  Undeterred, he moved with inhuman speed, capturing her in his arms so she couldn’t rush off and avoid this conversation. What he had to say needed to be said, even if she hated his guts.

  “Kimberly, listen to me a moment. Just listen—”

  “No. No. You let me go, now, and get out of my life! You ruin everything! Let go of me!”

  Frustrated, he let out another growl, his grip tightening. “Not until you listen. You can hate me all you like, but I have something to say, and by the gods, you are going to let me speak.”

  She shut her mouth, staring up at him with such a look on her face that he had the feeling she was wishing she could hate him to death at that moment. He didn’t blame her, particularly since his attempt to make things right between them appeared to be a spectacular failure before he even managed to tell her he was sorry. He had to get the words out before something else managed to come between them.

  “I’m sorry about your job. I’m sorry about me. I’ve made a terrific number of mistakes when it comes to you, and I’ll be damned if I’m not going to do something to make it right.”

  She opened her mouth to interrupt him, but he pressed a finger to her lips before she could get a word out.

  “You hate me, I know,” he continued, “but I can’t just walk away. I promised to keep you safe, and I will. I can’t just stand aside and watch you slave and suffer for the things you want. You deserve far better than to spend your life reaching for the stars, never able to reach them. Let me bring them to you. Let me give you what you need. Please. If you won’t have me, there are others. Other dragons.”

  The anger making her so tense in his arms eased out of her, though tears continued to trickle from her eyes as she stared up at him. He lifted a hand to brush some of that moisture away, flinching as she pulled back from his touch. Her voice, when it came, was low and resigned, so broken that he ached to hear it.

  “You just made me lose my job. Did you really curse the place? Other people depend on him for work. Jesus, Cormac—”

  “No, no, of course not. He’ll have a little string of bad luck, people treating him the way he’s treated Others, that’s all. Call it a karmic intervention.”

  “Fine. Whatever. But you made me look like an idiot in front of half the Others in New York. You lied to me, Cormac. How can I believe anything you say?”

  He lowered his head, closing his eyes as he took a deep, steadying breath. This was turning out to be far harder than he had expected.

  “Ask me for anything, Kimberly. Just ask, and I’ll give it to you. Money? Jewels? A familiar? I’ll buy your way into The Circle if that’s what you want.”

  Stung, she jerked back from him, some of the heat returning to her eyes. “Is that what you think of me? That you can buy me back?”

  He instinctively tightened his grip on her. Muscles tense, his voice, while steady, lowered in pitch until she could have sworn her bones were vibrating in response. “I’m trying to make this right. Tell me what it is you want from me. Tell me what I can do to fix this. I’m not used to dealing with human feelings like this, Kimberly. I’ve tried to stay away, but I can’t. Help me understand how to make this up to you.”

  She leaned forward, her head thumping against his chest. It took a moment for him to catch on that her shoulders were shaking from laughter, not tears, though he could tell by the taste of salt on his tongue that she hadn’t stopped crying yet.

  “You… you idiot,” she wheezed. “You can’t buy an apology. God, you are an arrogant ass.”

  He snorted, pulling her into him and burying his nose in her hair. She couldn’t hate him that much if she was laughing at him. Relief nearly made him fall to his knees. He might have, if he hadn’t been holding her in his arms just then.

  “Runs in the bloodline, or so I’m told,” he said.

  She couldn’t respond, she was laughing so hard. For this first time in his terrifically long lifespan, he found he didn’t mind being the butt of the joke.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  The sound of a throat clearing behind her had Kimberly looking over her shoulder.

  She swiped under her eyes with a hand as soon as she saw Damaris standing several feet away, looking both frightened and determined. The centaur was dressed much the same as she had been the first time Kimberly had seen her; prepared for a day of hiking rather than a city excursion.

  The woman inclined her head, but kept her eyes glued to Cormac with the awareness of a prey animal in the presence of something it knows might choose to attack and eat it. Cormac went very still before letting Kimberly slide from his grasp, his gaze growing avid with hunger as he prowled in her wake.

  Kimberly took Damaris’s extended hand, accepting the offered shake in greeting.

  “How are you and Eddie and the rest of your herd doing? Everything all right?” Kimberly asked.

  Damaris kept her eyes glued to Cormac, who was watching her just as closely, though with far different intent. “Very well, thank you, miss. I… I am very sorry if I interrupted, Lord Hunter.”

  Cormac smiled, his grin full of a few too many fangs. “Your timing leaves something to be desired.”

  Kimberly frowned, glancing back at him—then doing a double-take once she realized just what had Damaris looking ready to bolt. She stepped between them, folding her arms and glaring up at him with reddened eyes.

  “Are you trying to give me another reason to be mad at you? As far as I’m concerned, you’re still in the doghouse, mister.”

  If anything could have jolted him out of his wolfish mien, that was it. In the space of a heartbeat, he became a different person, the coiled tension in his muscles and the hungry glitter to his eyes disappearing. Lowering his head, he sketched a brief bow to the centaur, the thin smile he gave her now close-lipped and lacking any hint of the threat that had been present a moment before.

  “My apologies, Lady Archer. You have nothing to fear from me. Not today.”

  Damaris did not appear to find this very reassuring. The pleading look she turned on Kimberly made that clear.

  Putting a hand to the bridge of her nose, Kimberly took a couple of deep breaths to steady her temper. Both of them were driving her around the bend.

  “This day is shaping up to be a contender for a spot in the top ten worst days of my life. Cormac, I made a promise that I intend to keep. I’ll talk to you later. Let’s go, Damaris.”

  That prompted a low, rumbling growl out of him. The sound stopped as soon as she rounded on him and gave him a sharp look.

  “I don’t want to leave you. I only just got you back,” he protested.

  “Yeah, well, you’re on thin ice. I’m not done giving you a piece of my mind yet.”

  The whites were visible all the way around Damaris’s irises. Her harsh whisper was loud enough to be heard across the street. “Do you know what you’re talking to?”

  “She does,” Cormac said.

  “I do,” Kimberly said, giving him a quiet down now look.

  Damaris gaped at her. Kimberly threw her hands up. “For God’s sake, he’s not going to eat you. Or me. Or anyone. Let’s just go and get this over with. Then I’ll take you up on your offer.”

  Damaris said, “That’s fine” at the same time as Cormac asked, “What offer?”

  Kimberly turned around, grabbed his collar, and yanked him down to give him a kiss. He was so surprised at her temerity that he didn’t do a thing to try to stop her, and was soon leaning into it. The moment he reached for her, fingertips brushing over her arms, she pulled back and gave him a little push away.

  The green fire in her eyes entranced him as thoroughly as her kiss had as she glared up at him.

  “You,” she told him, “have no right to ask me that. Pack up that possessive streak and take it with you back to y
our shop and wait for me there. I’ll come and see you when I’m done, and then we can talk about how you plan on getting me my job back and making up for this mess you made of my life. Got it?”

  “Demanding little thing,” he said, not without affection. “If you’re going with Damaris, I’m coming with you. Don’t argue with me. Her herd runs too close to Viper’s territory for my taste, and I’m not about to leave you unprotected.”

  Kimberly was reaching the end of her rope. As upset as she had been with him, the mere mention of Viper’s name was enough to make her pale and shrink into herself. As badly as she wanted to prove that she was capable of handling her own life and keeping her own promises, the thought of seeing Viper again filled her with cold dread.

  Seeing how badly he had upset her, Cormac tugged her against him, pressing a kiss to her temple. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you.”

  She took a shuddering breath, then forced a smile. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

  “I don’t.”

  Damaris shuffled awkwardly from foot to foot, drawing their attention off each other and onto her. It was clear from the look on the woman’s face that she was not thrilled with the way things were turning out, but was uncertain how to tell them so. Her fear of Cormac had not abated in the least, though she was still boggling over how Kimberly ordered him around.

  “Should I come back later?” she asked.

  “No, of course not,” Kimberly told her. “Lead the way. I hope you don’t mind that he’s coming, too.”

  The centaur looked ill at the idea of letting the dragon anywhere near her herd, but she didn’t say a thing to protest.

  Kimberly was not surprised that the centaur had a pickup truck. The tension in the cab was through the roof with Damaris’s stiff, jerky movements and Cormac’s unwavering gaze focused on the centaur. He wasn’t doing anything overtly threatening, but the mere fact of his presence was worrying the centaur to distraction.

  It took a little less than an hour to get to the rambling, open park Damaris explained was where her herd usually ran. They weren’t too far from the pine barrens, but the sandy beaches and grasslands were more open and provided a better location for them to slip out of their human skins and be themselves for a while.

  It also provided excellent cover for the werewolves who hunted the area during the full moon. Considering the centaurs mostly ran at dusk and dawn due to the possibility of being spotted during the day, that left them open to the danger of being hunted by the pack. The full grown centaurs were usually able to hold their own, but the youngest and oldest were always at risk.

  Cormac listened as Damaris explained her problem, and noted how Kimberly’s features hardened with resolve.

  He had never given the centaurs’ welfare much thought. Or any thought, for that matter. They had been his prey in ages past, after all. He could still remember the taste, though it had been centuries since the last time he had hunted them. As humanity expanded their empires and elemental Others were driven out of their ancient homelands, he had altered his feeding patterns, choosing prey animals that weren’t magical in nature. The depleted numbers of Others had a great deal to do with his choice, as did his changing tastes as he grew older.

  He was, like any shark or big cat, almost exclusively a carnivore. He made no apologies for his hungers, but found, as he learned the hard lesson that his kind was not the only intelligent creature worthy of consideration, that he no longer had any desire to feed on the sentient. Unlike many dragon-kin, while his appetite was enormous, he no longer fed to the point of gluttony as he had as a wyrmling.

  Of course, Damaris’s delicious scent of fear in the enclosed cab of the pickup didn’t make it easy for him to remember that resolution.

  When they arrived, Cormac waited by the truck, leaning against the front bumper as Kimberly walked across the sand and gravel to get into animated conversation with the other centaurs Damaris introduced her to. The herd was small; no more than twenty adult members, only three young children frolicking in the tall grasses and a lone teenager come to meet their mage savior. Their numbers had shrunk quite a bit since he had last bothered to interest himself in their affairs.

  While the adults all watched him warily out of the corners of their eyes, he was struck by how quick they were to trust that Kimberly was there to help them. More than that, by how she was so intent on living up to their expectations. She nodded along with their explanations, asking questions, examining the lay of the land the centaurs called their territory. If he hadn’t been watching her so closely, he wouldn’t have seen her dash away a few tears with the back of her hand while ostensibly crouching down to get a feel for the local ley line energy.

  Seeing how deeply affected Kimberly was by the plight of the centaurs had him rethinking his own stance.

  As she began pacing off the perimeter of the area they liked to run, he moved to follow at a sedate pace behind them. He kept his hands pocketed and his head down, doing his best to appear as harmless as possible, but they were quick to stop and surround their little ones, not budging from the field overlooking the parking lot.

  Kimberly fisted her hands on her hips, and pointed imperiously back at the car. He frowned, pausing in his tracks but staying where he was.

  After a long, tense moment, the centaurs resumed their tour with Kimberly, this time keeping their children close. He stayed where he was, closing his eyes and extending his other senses to keep tabs on the group. He noted the few centaurs in their native form hiding amid the trees, bows trained on him, and dismissed them. He was more concerned whether Viper had recovered enough to hunt and sate his no doubt enormous appetite. He would be searching for prey such as the centaurs as soon as he was able.

  Cormac’s senses told him the wyvern was still very much alive, but not close enough to be a threat. There were no other predators in the area significant enough to warrant him following the group with anything more than his Sight, so he leaned his butt against the pickup truck and tilted his face up to the sun, soaking in the warmth as he waited for them to return.

  He was very proud to note that Kimberly was pausing every few yards to etch a mix of glyphs similar to the ones he used to guard his apartment above the Wild Hunt in the trees and rocks. The wards she was building were strong, though she appeared to be using more obfuscation and repelling sigils than he did.

  It took several hours even though it appeared that the centaurs’ grazing area must have shrunken considerably along with the size of the herd. Her circle was still much larger than those that many skilled magi he knew were capable of drawing and imbuing with power. This was on the order of the magic used to guard monoliths like the academies and larger covens such as The Circle. That she was capable of putting it together with limited materials or time to study the lay of the land meant she had greater power and skill than he or Eleanor Reed or anyone else at Blackhollow may have guessed. He could sense that her strength was flagging by the time they returned, but she looked so pleased and self-satisfied that any worry he might have had faded away at the sight of her radiant smile.

  The centaurs all looked quite pleased as well.

  “Cormac, will you step back please?”

  He did as she asked, returning to his lean against the car, and he watched with interest as she moved to the edge of the parking lot. She crouched down and used a piece of spelling chalk that was down to nothing more than a tiny nub in her fingers, etching a symbol into one of the big stones that bordered the edge of the field. The hair on the back of his neck and on his arms raised as the nearby ley lines chimed with a tremendous shift in power.

  “Okay, that’s the last one,” she said. “Damaris, Eddie, a few others—can you try crossing over the line and coming back?”

  The centaurs did, the one called Eddie snorting as he stepped back inside the range of her protective circle. He scrubbed at his arms, as did Damaris and the two other centaurs who did as she asked.

  �
��Good. Can some of you shift now? Someone on the other side tell me what you see.”

  Cormac tilted his head, watching with narrowed eyes. Some of the centaurs grew hazy in his vision, but when he blinked, they still looked human to him. Curious, he shifted to using his Sight instead—and was surprised to see they were in their native forms.

  “They still look the same, my lady,” one of the centaurs said. Others chimed in to say the same.

  “Come across the line.”

  The centaur’s sound of surprise told Cormac everything he needed to know. The obfuscation sigils she added to the circle were hiding their native forms from prying eyes. It was a particularly thoughtful gesture on her part. Passing humans, Weres, or other hunters of a non-magical nature would never see the herd for what they were as long as they were outside the circle.

  “Excellent. One last test. Cormac, will you try to reach me now, please?”

  She took a step back deeper beyond the protection of the glyphs and folded her arms, waiting for him to come to her. Tilting his head, he pushed off the truck and stalked closer, eyes glued to hers as he met her challenging gaze.

  He expected to meet resistance. He didn’t expect the minor jolt of electricity zapping over his skin, driving him back with a startled hiss.

  “Sorry,” she said, the edge of laughter in her voice saying she wasn’t sorry at all. “Come on, we need to know it’ll hold. Can you get through?”

  Determined to reach her, he put out a hand, testing the strength of the ward. It crackled over his fingers and gave a fraction, but held under the weight of his will seeking any crack or seam to exploit.

  Both hands netted him the same result. The damned thing was near impregnable unless he shifted into his native form and expended a great deal more energy than he was prepared to waste.

  The centaurs applauded when he stepped back and sketched a brief bow to concede defeat.